On the Road to Residency, the Class of 2011 Match Across the Country

Graduating medical students Ricardo Cruz, from left, Arun Ganesh, Luis Meggo Quirros, Pranab Barman, and Shethal Bearelly celebrate during Match Day March 17, 2011 in Hiebert Lounge.

With a countdown from Dean Antman to the stroke of noon, members of the BUSM class of 2011 excitedly stepped forward to receive their Match Day letters from faculty and administrators. With 161 BUSM students in the match this year, 33 of them will be staying on campus for residency at Boston Medical Center, others are heading across the country from New England to California and Canada. Forty-five percent of the class is pursuing internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine. See the video here.

The annual event held this year on March 17 marks the day when medical students around the nation receive notification from the National Residency Matching Program about which residency program they will be attending and where they will spend the next three to five years of their lives following graduation.

“You were already accomplished on your arrival to BUSM,” said Dean Antman. “We know when we survey residency program directors, we will hear that you are exceptionally prepared clinically, with exemplary professional behavior.”

The students and their guests, who were gathered for an awards ceremony prior to the event, made their way up to the 14th floor of the Instructional Building minutes before noon where the letter-opening ritual was held for the first time in the Hiebert Lounge.

“This year’s graduating class is quite special in their support for each other. They didn’t sit down to lunch today until they were sure of how everyone else had done in the Match,” said Phyllis Carr, MD, BUSM associate dean for student affairs. “Our students all did extremely well, getting into many top programs across the country, and the students matched to BMC will bring a great esprit de corps.”